Posted on 11/13/2024 7:56:30 PM PST by BenLurkin
NASA's plagued Space Launch System rocket, which is being developed to deliver the first astronauts to the Moon in over half a century, is on thin ice.
According to Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger's insider sources, there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled."
"Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," he added, referring to the variant that was used during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022 and a more powerful design with a much higher translunar injection payload capacity, respectively. "All of it."
To be clear, as Berger himself points out, we're still far "from anything being settled." Nonetheless, the reporter's sources have historically been highly reliable, suggesting the space agency may indeed be getting cold feet about continuing to pour billions of dollars into the non-reusable rocket.
The SLS has already seen its fair share of budget overruns and many years of delays. In a 2022 interview, former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver told Futurism that the project is simply "not sustainable."
The rocket platform has become a political football, going well past $6 billion over budget and over half a decade behind schedule.
"I will be direct," former NASA administrator Michael Griffin told the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee during a January hearing on the space agency's Artemis program,"In my judgment, the Artemis Program is excessively complex, unrealistically priced, compromises crew safety, poses very high mission risk of completion, and is highly unlikely to be completed in a timely manner even if successful."
So far, the rocket has been launched only once, as part of NASA's inaugural Artemis mission in 2022, but damage sustained by the agency's Orion spacecraft has given officials pause about its ability to safely send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years.
(Excerpt) Read more at futurism.com ...
Obama absolutely wrecked NASA How? And why would he?
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Muslim outreach for one, and it was is part of his transformational plan for the US. Or in other words, to completely destroy the US - taking out NASA was just one step.
Elon’s next trick will be to catch the returning ?HLS? spaceship
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Catching Starship is part of the plan for the next flight or the one after that.
That basis is that faster than light travel is not possible, and never will be possible.
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You state that from your advanced knowledge of the future, and theoretical physics? How many degrees do you currently hold in cosmology and theoretical physics?
Maybe your advanced knowledge of the future, you could enlighten us on how Trumps new term will turn out as well? Stock tips would be helpful also.
The question raised in my mind is Elon Musk as a primary government contractor in the form of Space X now in a position of conflict of interest?
As a practical matter, his real competitors are increasingly falling behind leaving Space X in a near monopoly for rocket launches.
No kidding. Nelson was around when the moon was born. Time for him to go.
They don’t have the plans, and no one remembers how it worked.
Seriously. All that stuff is lost.
I don’t think you understood.
No FTL, ever, is the basis of Three Body Problem. It is a series of award winning Chinese science fiction novels. Recently filmed in corrupted form by Netflix.
I have two Masters degrees, courtesy of the USAF. Ionospheric plasma physics and an MBA. Not really relevant to the Chinese novelist, so dunno why you asked.
1) A scientist on a Chinese spacecraft.
2) Something arranged by Elon Musk with Chinese permission to land at their base.
Meanwhile Trumo has other thing to worry about besides a space race.
It was a joke, sparky.
Make a joke, but that is the actual plan for the upcoming Starship flights. So it was no much of a joke, sparky.
Yeah I read all 4 of the Chinese novels - but you missed a lot reading only the first ... apparently. And yes there was FTL in the series, in case you missed it.
Ionospheric plasma physics
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Is not theoretical physics or cosmology.
PS: there is another version of TBP, not corrupt, made by TenCent.
Watched the TenCent version and heard so much bad about Netflix that I saw only youtube clips.
The books are a work of genius. The author was a power plant engineer in China before he sold zillions.
Ionospheric plasma is not only . . .not relevant to about a thousand things, it has itself changed since my day. Finite element analysis of plasma volumes don’t yield the same numbers it used to. Almost certainly derives from daring to take data during some part of the 11 year solar cycle and not others (because it didn’t exist).
Those were the good old days.
TenCent’s version is about 90X better. They have over a billion people from which to select great actors and actresses, for reasons other than lip filler.
Interesting typo!
DEI could not figure out what biological thing would be “the first to step foot on the moon, in __ years.”
Thus, mission and rocket stuff canceled.
But NASA not canceled.
Dark Forest, Deaths End, and The Redemption of Time are also excellent and deserve a film or series each.
I did. The joke I made was that Elon would try to land it atop of the already landed booster just to show off. That is not the "actual" plan, unless you simply don't know what the word means, sparky.
Amen. Another SpaceX achievement!
Like the great prophet Berra proclaimed: it ain’t over till it’s over!
Those were unmanned, not manned missions.
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